Worse Day of His Life

The day started early. I woke up to THUMP, THUMP, THUMP. I sleepily looked at the clock and knew it was my son. Most days this summer he has been sleeping in. Since I don't do mornings well I have been a happy mommy because of that. However, there are mornings here and there that he is up earlier than I would like. So I get out of bed and go down stairs.

THUMP, THUMP, THUMP. It gets louder as I go down through B's room and down the stairs. When I open the door I see P playing soccer in the living room. So I take a deep breath and prepare myself for the day. I know it is going to be "One Of Those Days". On his good days he will wake me up in the morning and will follow the rules better. Not that we have a no playing soccer in the living room, but we have similar ones. At least he is in the house I think to myself. There have been times I have woken up to a pajama clad boy playing in the yard.

It wasn't so bad until he started to get hurt over and over again. Oh I felt bad for him, but I have to admit that I was getting aggravated. Not because he was getting hurt. But when he gets hurt he screams like he broke a bone, or has a major ambulance calling injury. I have been saying for a while now that one of these days he is going to get really hurt and I won't know it because he reacts to a paper cut, stubbed toe, bleeding cut or whatever the same way.

So this morning he must have hurt himself a dozen times. I kept checking on him and soothing him, but I have to admit after about six injuries in an hour I was reacting a little slower and started to assume he wasn't really getting hurt that badly. Now the morning stretched on and my daughter was awake. We were getting ready to go to the Mushroom Pool with some friends. We can't find his bathing suit and I am aggravated.

I don't know how it happened, I was in a different room. All of a sudden I hear him scream again. "OW, OW, OW!!!!" I was mad now, I assumed he wasn't really hurt, like the "Boy Who Cried Wolf" and I yelled. Then I find out he ran into the edge of a door and has a bump on his head. Now I felt like the worse mommy ever. I assumed he wasn't really hurt, I yelled at him and I made him wait for my attention.

I am going to have to attend to his injuries like they are bad ones. Luckily today it wasn't too serious. His eyes were normal, he wasn't nauseous and didn't throw up after the bump. But he does have a goose egg on his head. I know it is the Asperger's that causes him to over react to small injuries. But I am the Mommy and I need to be there for him large or small injuries.

The rest of the day was not much better for him, he still kept getting hurt. And of course I ran to him every time now. He didn't like the mushroom pool (look at his face in the photo, he is not a happy boy.) Things he wanted to do couldn't be done. Places he wanted to go to were stayed away from. He didn't like any of the snack choices we had. The usual "There is nothing to play with and nothing to do!"

As we watched Molly the Barn Owl (Link to her web cam in the title) at bedtime, which is our new routine, he hugged me and announce that today was the worse day of his life.

I Don't Know if I Can Make It

I am so done, How do I get out?

He keeps swearing and spitting and is starting to throw things again. The names he calls me in front of the kids are horrible. This move however is the last straw. His mother is taking over and he is just letting it happen.

Yes, my house was a mess, I don't deny that. It took a long time to get that way, Guess what it is going to take some time to clean it. I stayed in one room and he stayed in another for over a year. Things piled up, but it wasn't all me. He also contributed to the mess. He also let it build up. He also hid it from the world. Why am I the only one that is getting flack for it?

We were supposed to be out on June 30th. Funny with classes, finals, summer school, not having any help except a couple hours from my brother we couldn't get everything out. I asked for an extra week, I knew it wouldn't be enough time, but I thought it would help. It might have if I wasn't the only one who was trying to get things moved out of that house.

D is happy being in a house with no books for the kids to read. He is mad that I brought over the few books that I did. Yes, I had a lot of books, way over a few hundred. We, the kids and I, D stopped reading to the kids years ago. They are too old for that he says. He actually is annoyed when the kids want him to read to them. Anyway we read them all, many more than once. There is no such thing as too many books to me. To him apparently there is, and we have too many.

He is happy with hardly any toys for the kids to play with. I have tried to get the toys boxes moved over to this house. He won't do it. Our car trunk won't open (he broke the opener latch and the key won't work) so I really can't move them on my own. He won't ask for help because the house is too messy. So we really have just the basics here.

How basic? When I bought a pitcher for $1.00 because we had nothing here to make Kool-Aid in he got mad at me because it was an unnecessary purchase. Oh yeah, I am not allowed to carry cash. Well, he won't give me any, I will go to the bank if I need it. Then I have to explain why I needed money. I use the bank card, which he cannot keep track of, and he berates me for using it. When I actually had "my own" money he still got mad at me for buying things because he thought the purchase was stupid. If I wanted jewelry, I had to buy it and then I have to explain why I wanted it.

He knows about these blogs I write and he hates them. Not because he thinks they are inaccurate. No, he is worried the wrong person will read them and he might lose his job. Well, if what I am writing, which is actually what he does, might cause him to lose his job, maybe he should stop doing them.

So we have been in this house for a month and his mother, our landlord inspects the house, fine I get it, I will do a better job, I won't let things pile up like I did before. I won't slip into a deep deppression where I don't even want to move for months. I have better meds now so I can stay on top of things better. But I am not going to be Suzy Homemaker. I am not going to be perfect. I am not going to be my MIL! So when you (my MIL) comes over to inspect the house, if there are two pop bottles in the basement don't tell me I am letting the house turn into a disaster. The last house yes it is/was a disaster. Two pop bottles is not even close.

Oh and I don't care if you are my MIL or my landlord. I am pretty sure the law still applies to you. I don't know a lot about law, but I do know a landlord cannot just throw away a tenants belongings without notice. I think it has to be in writing and I pretty sure that, "Well, you don't have a lot of time" is not acceptable notice. I also am pretty sure if you tell a tenant verbally that "you don't have a lot of time" to get their personal/loved/treasured items out of the house one hour is not going to be an acceptable length of time.

Fine you don't want to give us more time, I get it you are mad. But really one hour, if you had said I had one hour to get treasures out of the house I would have scrambled to get it done. Then the doll that was made for my mother when she was a child, the one with a wig made out of my mother's hair would be in my house instead of the dump. Then I wouldn't have to garbage pick my wedding ring and engagement ring off the curb. Then my crystal vase would not have been carelessly tossed in a garbage bag with my wedding bouquet. LOL, why am I so concerned with things from my wedding, maybe I should have let them go.

Oddly, D made sure his treasures were here. His hockey cards he found and brought over. Nothing of mine. If I try to get anything, he calls me a hoarder. And that is the nicest thing he calls me. This morning I spotted in the clear garbage bags outside the old house, photographs of my children, heirlooms and other items important to me. I could have torn open the bags and just took out the things I saw, but I grabbed the whole bag to sort through. I only managed to get maybe 10 bags out of the horribly large pile of bags left for trash.

He was livid when he saw the bags. He only saw the garbage. How dare I bring the bags into this house. It took me an hour of sorting, I only saved a few items from the bags. Most of it went back into the garbage. I know it seems like I could have gone to the old house before this explosion occurred but I found it hard to do so. If I left him in charge of the kids for a long time, he would watch tv and not hear anything they did. They would do something to set him off and then who knows what he would do. He threatens them a lot, When I am there I can diffuse it, I try to always be there as a buffer.

If I let him go to the old house alone, not a lot would be done, his items would be saved and anything else has no value to him so out it goes. So it is really no different either he tosses my life or his mother does. I let it go one week too long and she is angry and so What I interpret "Not much time" to mean and what she really means is a huge difference.

Here is the kicker. D comes home from work early in the morning, we are all asleep when he gets home. He drives by the old house. I asked him to stop in to get a few things if they were still here. I thick I asked for two paintings, a wall shelf, my books (maybe 30) from the bedroom, a hanging pot rack and if he happened to see something that might be important to me. I also suggested again that we bring P's desk, the toy boxes and a few toys for the kids. The kids have been asking for them. D got upset and again called me a hoarder. I want to much from the old house. The kids have too much already. (they each have very few toys here)

My MIL attacks me because of the pop bottles, he attacks me because I want some books and toys for my children. I have been planning on getting out after I get my degree, now I don't know. I might need to leave earlier. I wanted to be able to support my children. Do I dare leave when I am about to start student teach?

There is some good news. Our cat Simba came back. He has been MIA for a week. My MIL doesn't like the cat and I can't help but wonder if she had something to do with him being gone.

Well, my rambling is done, I feel better. Today is almost over and somehow I will get past all of this. I did manage to get some things back. The cornhusk doll I made is in my china cabinet along with a beautiful blue and white pitcher a treasured friend gave me. Some things I will never get back, luckily I still have my memories.